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Monthly Archives: March 2013

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Yesterday, we drove to the small town of Erath, pronounced ee-rath, to visit their museum. A wonderful website intrigued us and off we went. We had an amusing introduction because the museum wasn’t open. We called all of the volunteers listed on a bronze plaque, obviously printed with high hopes, and only one was a working number with a message machine. The City Hall claimed they had nothing to do with it. The cafe number was good, and an employee pointed to a paper-sign as the right number to call, and it, too, was disconnected. We kind of chomped at the bit and Jim called back to City Hall and asked to speak to the Mayor. The secretary there finally located someone to come and open the doors. I KNOW what it is like in a small town where the barber puts a “gone fishing” sign on his door, or…

Looks like consumer electronics makers may owe Netflix (S NFLX) a few favors: Consumers are finally beginning to care about Smart TVs, with 30.7 percent of people in the market for a new TV with internet connectivity, according to the latest IHS Smart TV Consumer Survey. Twelve months ago, that number was still at 18.1 percent.

There is also a significant growth in the interest for 3-D, but it’s still a less important feature than connectivity. A year ago, only 6.6 percent of potential TV buyers were looking to buy a 3-D TV. Now, it’s 18.8 percent.

However, it’s worth pointing out that size is still one of the biggest drivers, and that price matters more than it did just 12 months ago. 53 percent of consumers who want to buy a new TV now say that the price tag is a main purchase driver. That’s up from 27.9 percent 12…

The folks at Peer1, the hosting provider, have my number. They just released a map of the Internet that combines my love of cartography and connectivity in one beautiful mash up of pixels. The app is pretty simple, and shows the connections between bandwidth providers around the world.

It’s an update to the a physical map Peer1 did in 2011, that was also awesome, but thanks to the Android(s goog) and iOS apps(s aapl) you can now play around with the map in a global view or a network view. The global view is like one of those satellite images of city lights at night with glowing dots representing connections. The network view is a bit more esoteric, clustering those with the most connections at one end.

It’s pretty basic, focusing mostly on the names of the players and how many connections they have to others on the…

Like virtually every other traditional media outlet, the Washington Post has been squeezed hard by the decline in print advertising revenue and the inability of digital ad revenue to fill that gap. Unlike almost every other outlet, however, the Post has resisted putting up a paywall (for now at least) and instead has been experimenting with other methods of monetization. Its latest venture is sponsored content — something that is controversial, but deserves to be tried by anyone interested in figuring out how digital content works now.